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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Jenille Scott, Climate Director at ALIGN
2:29:08
ยท
120 sec
Jenille Scott, Climate Director at ALIGN and member of the Transform No Trash Coalition, testified about the slow implementation of the Commercial Waste Zone (CWZ) program in New York City. She urged for a faster rollout of the program, citing safety concerns for sanitation workers and environmental impacts on communities.
- Only 1 out of 20 zones has been implemented so far, with plans for 2 more in 2025 and full implementation by 2027
- Scott highlighted the hazardous nature of sanitation work, including long shifts and inefficient routes
- The coalition's research revealed 103 incidents and 3 fatalities in the industry between 2022 and 2024
Jenille Scott
2:29:08
Thank you to chair Abreu for the opportunity to testify today.
2:29:12
My name is Janelle Scott and I'm the climate director at Align and we're also a member of the transform no trash coalition.
2:29:19
Our coalition is working to transform New York City's commercial trash industry by reducing waste pollution, fostering clean and healthy communities for New Yorkers, as well as creating better working conditions for our sanitation workers.
2:29:33
Our coalition has been doing this work for over ten years now and just over six years ago had advocated for the passage of local law 01/1999 and as we've heard multiple times today we only have one zone out of the 20 zones with an announcement to have two additional zones this year and so that leaves us with 17 zones that DSNY plans to roll out by 2027 which is two years from now.
2:29:57
This is still too slow of a timeline and it's still not clear the reason behind that delayed timeline and otherwise just seems as a decision from the administration because we've already heard that there's a lot of support from varying angles for the commercial waste zone system.
2:30:13
Sanitation remains one of the most hazardous occupations with workers driving long shifts of up to twelve hours a night traveling across multiple boroughs to pick up waste on very inefficient routes and this also releases huge amounts of emissions which continue to affect the public health of already overburdened communities and in our research alone we've seen that between 2022 and 2024 there have been one hundred and three incidents with three fatalities.
2:30:41
So this should not be the case after six years that the law has been passed and we think that this administration needs to and can do better.
2:30:49
So we are not asking for all the zones to be implemented at once but we are asking for them to be implemented in our lifetime.
2:30:55
So thank you so much for the opportunity to testify today and we look forward to continuing to work with the City Council as well as DSMY for a stronger and quicker rollout timeline.
2:31:07
Thank you.
Shaun Abreu
2:31:07
I don't know if we want to give them the deadline of a lifetime.